by Florian Kohlfürst & Johanna Lindner The third goal of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was to “promote gender equality and empower wome.n. The gender parity target in primary and secondary education was set a deadline in 2005, ten years before the general deadline of the MDGs in 2015. This underlines its importance and …

by Oliver Authreid In the year 2000, when the Millennium Summit convened, the economic inequality was not as serious as it is right now, but there was a broader consensus in the international community to overcome that problem. And so a policy was set, which was to become known as the eight Millennium Development Goals …

by Boris Brković At the dawn of the new millennium, all the world’s countries agreed to a development blueprint creating eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Fast-forward 15 years and not all of the MDGs have been met. However, the year 2015, which also marks the 200th anniversary of the Congress of Vienna when the Concert …

by Valentina Milanese The buzzword of the 2016 U.S. Election campaign will be income inequality. Politicians on both sides seem to be finally ready to talk about what some define as “the greatest challenge for the country today.” And while for many worried Americans this might seem like just another slogan, to many economists, “it’s …

by Laura Pelzmann As we land in Tel Aviv, the urge to get off the plane increases rapidly. In front of us is the Holy Land, place of legends shared by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, where so many of the founding myths of Middle Eastern and European culture began. With a group of fellow …

by Victoria Haykin Germany’s efforts to eradicate national reliance on nuclear power have resulted in increased dependence on fossil fuels. The country has done little to re-evaluate its energy policy despite the political and environmental contention surrounding its increased dependence on coal. In November 2014, Germany’s Energy Minister, Barbara Hendricks, acknowledged that without curtailing its …

by Maria Wirth In efforts to sustain its economic growth rate, China discovered the benefits of renewable energy sources, such as hydropower. When the Chinese find a lucrative idea, they act in superlatives and the early 2000s saw a real hydropower takeoff. With 22,000 dams higher than 15 meters, China is the largest producer of …

by Ed Alvarado Identity is defined as “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.” In order to find out who the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna (DA) is, students filled out a survey that asked about their individual identities. Based on those statistics, the average DA student is a right-handed female …

by Dennis Chan Hong Ming There’s an old Chinese proverb that says, “three feet of ice does not result from one day of cold weather.” This proverb is eerily adequate for understanding the relations between China and its most important Special Administrative Region – Hong Kong. However, the icy conflict separating Hong Kong and China …

by Jasmina Hodžić In the year behind us, for the first time, more electricity in Germany was supplied by renewables than by any other energy source. Nevertheless, the report by the Berlin think thank Agora Energiewende shows that Germany’s coal consumption in 2014 reached the highest level since 1990, resulting in unprecedently high carbon dioxide …

by Carmyn Chapman and Matthew Short The world order has shifted, yet again. Renewed turbulence in the Middle East provoked by the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the current crisis in Ukraine have generated serious dilemmas in the international system, while simultaneously demanding principled and pragmatic policy positions. Numerous …

by András Zágoni-Bogsch Opinion Piece – As black and white images with the words “Je suis Charlie” disappear from our Facebook friends’ profile photos, and while the media coverage about the brutal massacre that shook the Western abates, we are left with questions to ask ourselves. Not only about what happened to the victims of …

by Jason Fischer The wake of the mid-term elections last fall have provided little clarity and raised a plethora of questions with regard to U.S. foreign policy. This was yet another mid-term rout against President Barack Obama and his Democrat allies in Congress. The 114th Congress takes their seats with a new Republican Senate majority …

by Daniel Reinhardt Once again, German current account (CA) surplus reaches the largest one on the globe, hitting the total of €220 billion for the previous year. Defined as the sum of a country’s balance of trade, net income from abroad and net current transfers, Germany’s CA excess is seen as a success by many …

by Andrea Sternad “Le Congrés ne marche pas: il danse.” This famous quote on the slow progress of negotiations in 1814 stems from the enigmatic Prince de Ligne, whose death added a well-attended funeral to the countless festivities that surrounded the Congress of Vienna. Two hundred years after this meeting of the great European powers …

by Matthew Rae The euro has reached its lowest level in nine years when it closed at $1.05 against the U.S. dollar this month. This decrease was partially caused by the Greek crisis. At the same time, the majority of the political and economic crises plaguing Greece radiates from the currency zone itself, Andrew Moravcsik …

by Anastasiia Gnatenko The Crisis in Ukraine brought a number of notions back to the fore of international discourse, which, before 2014, were considered historical heritage rather than political reality. We have been witnessing the triumphant return of the classic Cold War vocabulary of East-West division: “deterrence” and “containment” being increasingly used in the media, …

by Nicolas Maximilian Oster Europe is in free fall. At least that’s what pundits commenting on European affairs would have you believe these days. They cite an economy trudging from one recession to the next, a welfare system being suffocated by an aging population, a political union overburdened by the Bruxellois bureaucracy, and a cultural …

by Jelena Vićić Year 2014 marks the 25th anniversary of the end of the Cold War, and possibly the beginning of a new one. The fallout of the financial crisis, the Ukraine conflict, the ISIS threat and anti-immigration sentiments are some of the troubling trends Europe is facing today. About these and other issues, …

by Simon Tasso The Scottish referendum set alarm bells ringing in national governments across the European Union facing similar separatist movements within their own territories. Remarkably, 45 percent of Scots voted “Yes” to Independence, despite the broad uncertainty of its economic sustainability as an independent nation. An astonishing 84.5 percent of eligible voters flocked the …

by Anastasiia Gnatenko The U.S. Treasury has recently confirmed its intentions to try to halt the flow of money to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) by targeting its oil business and imposing sanctions on the external donors. Since it began its operations early this year, the Islamic State went far beyond the …

by Nicole Heydari Nicole Heydari is a 2013 MAIS graduate with U.S. government and contractor experience in foreign policy. She is currently an International Program Specialist for the Afghanistan Team at CLDP/U.S. Department of Commerce. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy …

by Flora Kwong The mention of terrorists often invokes images of Islamic fundamentalists fighting in the Middle East. However, recent killings in Quebec and in Canada’s own capital, Ottawa, have ignited Canadian media outlets to suggest that the enemy is not so far away. While they may have a point, the “enemy” may also not …

by Ed Alvarado On September 11, 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin published a letter to the American people, challenging U.S. President Barack Obama’s views on American exceptionalism. Obama claimed that American policy makes America “different and exceptional.” But on this 12th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that reshaped American foreign policy and American identity, Putin …

by Valentina Milanese Depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in a movie is nowadays considered an act of war against the country, as the regime in Pyongyang apparently does not kid around or like jokes. Sony Entertainment, the producer of the movie The Interview, learned this the hard way, as the comedy … Continue reading →

by Ármand Jámbor-Balog There were more than 5 million unemployed young people at the end of 2014 in the European Union while the Euro area languished under a youth unemployment rate of about 22 percent, according to official data sources. Even Angela Merkel, Germany’s long-serving Chancellor, spoke of the danger of a “lost generation.” The … Continue reading →

by Simon Tasso This year started with a bang, when British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that the country could hold a referendum on its EU membership sooner than the proposed date of 2017. A voluntary exit would be the first of its kind. Somewhat similar cases were Greenland, who voted to leave the European … Continue reading →

by Jelena Vićić Amongst the images of terrorist acts perpetuated by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the ones that caused the most outrage in the Balkans were those of Levdrim Muhaxheri, a Kosovo national, decapitating a Syrian teenager. These images uncovered the reality of ISIS’ success in recruiting foreign fighters not only in … Continue reading →

by Darcy Zhengyang Li The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), advocated by China, has stunned the world and even China itself, even without the bank being fully established yet. In June 2014, when China cautiously invited India to co-found the AIIB and proposed to double the bank’s registered capital from $50 billion to $100 billion, … Continue reading →

by András Zágoni-Bogsch The afternoon Sun is setting on the broad Tagus River as a colorful array of passers-by cross the Praca do Comércio. This is one of Lisbon’s prestigious main squares, whose extensive marble-covered surface has served for centuries as a gateway for envoys, merchants and visitors. Looking at the proportions of this dazzling … Continue reading →

by Zach Kornell Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced shift in the organization’s approach when he delivered a report to the 54th Session of the General Assembly in 1999. In the aftermath of the conflicts that took place in the 1990s around the globe, and the UN’s inability to respond appropriately, Annan realized change … Continue reading →

by Maria Wirth & Victoria Haykin ETIAtalks is an annual series of panel discussions organized by students of the Environmental Technologies and International Affairs (ETIA) programme offered conjointly by the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna and the Vienna University of Technology. Panel topics explore environmental issues, and how these interconnect with society, politics, international relations and … Continue reading →

by Matthew Rae In November 1786, in a letter-exchange between Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, and the first President of the U.S. George Washington, Mr. Jefferson argued that “a hereditary aristocracy…will change the form of our Governments from the best to the worst in the world.” Fast forward two centuries, with Hilary Clinton and Jeb … Continue reading →

by Laura Pelzmann “Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are not utopian ideals. They are critical to global peace and security.” – Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations. In April, a preliminary agreement between the United States and Iran offered hope that a responsible nuclear plan might finally be possible. Negotiations between the P5 + … Continue reading →

by Sabine Krassing Illegal migration from the North African coast to the island of Lampedusa, situated around 300 km from the Libyan coast, has been an ongoing issue since the early 1990s, when Italy and other European countries introduced visa requirements. As early as 2002, the number of refugees coming not only from North African … Continue reading →

by Hana Đogović In May 1916, two statesmen, the Englishman Sir Mark Sykes and Frenchman Francois Georges-Picot, met in secret and almost arbitrarily divided the Arab peninsula into what later became known as “the spheres of influence.” The fate of this area, the birthplace of all monotheistic religions, was sealed, and the Arab feeling of … Continue reading →